A Gathering of Saints

by A Gathering of Saints (retail) (epub)

  The twin rows of blank-faced houses marched down both sides of the street to the foot of Holly Hill, looming like silent witnesses to his passing. The winding road was bleak, without a single planted tree, the tall, plain stone houses built flush with the pavement without any room for front gardens. Like everywhere else in London at this hour, the windows all had their blackout curtains drawn. The street was blind.

  Passing No. 31 Tennant gave it a casual sidelong glance but saw nothing to make the address stand out from its neighbours. He didn’t notice the corner of the curtain lifted in the house next door and was unaware of Mrs Monkman seated discreetly at her usual station by the front window of No. 33. By the same token Mrs Monkman was just as unaware of Tennant reaching the end of the street and turning back up the narrow laneway that ran behind the houses, carefully counting chimney pots until he was sure that he stood at the rear of No. 31.

  If anything, the rear elevation of the houses on Mount Vernon Street was even bleaker than the front. A head-high wooden fence, slats grey with age, ran the length of the alley, each address having its own gated doorway, secured with a simple hook and eye.

  Tennant let himself in through the rear gate, pausing for a moment, scanning the rear windows. The houses on either side of No. 31 had the usual drawn blackout curtains but Martin’s house had taken the regulations even further; even in the pitch darkness of the narrow little garden the psychiatrist could see by the lack of reflection that the man had painted out the windows entirely.

  A path led up to a small raised porch and Tennant followed it, stepping carefully, climbing the rudely made stairs and keeping close to the wall in case of creaking boards. The rear door was plain wood, dark paint bubbled and crazed by decades of neglect. He tried the knob.

  It was locked but by the feel of it not too securely. He brought out the clasp knife, snapped up the marlinespike and dug into the crack between door and frame just below the lockplate. There was a brief resistance and then a short, snapping sound as the bolt released. Tennant pocketed the knife, undid his jacket and pulled out his revolver, cocking the well-oiled Enfield mechanism. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside.

  Twenty minutes later, assuming that the first muffled screaming from the house next door was actually the well-known and profoundly irritating howling sound of cats mating in St John’s Cemetery, Mrs Monkman lifted her tired bones from the chair by the window and turned her hearing aid off, disgusted with the blatant caterwauling. She fixed herself a nerve-soothing cocktail of Dr J. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne mixture and scalded milk, drinking it down slowly, savouring each thick, hot swallow of the gluey concoction.

  She enjoyed the strong taste, especially since she hadn’t been able to smell or taste much of anything in years. First nose and taste buds, then the ears. Pretty soon it would be her eyes and where would she be after that? Finishing her drink, she climbed the stairs wearily, grumbling to herself about the unfairness of it all. She spent a frustrating few minutes in the lavatory then finally went to bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sunday, December 29, 1940

  5:00 p.m., Greenwich Mean Time

  The City was dark and silent as a crypt, empty and abandoned for Christmas-week Sunday. Taking the tube to Blackfriars, Morris Black made his way up the hill into St Paul’s Precinct, meandering through the maze of cobbled lanes and alleys until he found the half-hidden passage on Carter Lane that led into the enclosed courtyard of Wardrobe Place.

  The Bells was shut, of course; without the steady flow of office workers and tradesmen who normally worked in The City there was no reason for it to be open. Going out to Carter Lane and walking back to the corner of St Andrew’s Hill, Black found a small Italian cafe named Brogi’s, which was still doing business, and from Antonio Brogi, the restaurant’s owner, he learned that Mr Sedgewick, chief bell-ringer at St Paul’s, regularly took his dinner there before proceeding on to the Bells, where he and other members of the Society practised on hand-ringers for several hours at a time. Brogi had operated his cafe on the corner for the past twelve years and in that time Sedgewick had rarely missed a day, invariably arriving at exactly five p.m. All Black had to do was wait.

  True to the cafe owner’s word, a tall, slightly stooped man with snow-white hair entered the restaurant on the stroke of five, seating himself at a corner table in the empty room. Brogi introduced Black then brought the man his meal – a small plate of spaghetti, a small basket of bread and a small glass of red wine. Sedgewick was in his late sixties or early seventies, thin-faced and pale. He ate like a bird, quickly, with short pecking jabs of his fork.

  ‘You are interested in bell-ringing, Inspector Black?’

  ‘The father of a close friend was a member of your Society.’

  ‘Ah, and who would that be?’

  ‘Lord Burlingame.’

  Sedgewick smiled. ‘Toby Burlingame. Good man with a Treble Bob. Let him ring Great Paul once. Pleaded with me. Dead now, I suppose.’ Sedgewick flicked his fingernail against the side of his glass. It rang clearly, a single teller-stroke for a departed colleague. ‘Drank too much.’

  ‘He died several years ago.’

  ‘Too bad. Not many of us left.’ Sedgewick frowned. ‘Should have taken better care of himself.’ The old man ate a forkful of his dinner and then took a sip of wine. ‘How can I help you, Inspector?’

  ‘If it’s at all possible, I’d like to see a list of your members. You have one, I assume?’

  ‘Of course.’ He took another sip of wine. ‘Might I ask why?’

  ‘An investigation.’

  ‘Nothing more you can say?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘Does it involve the Society in any way?’

  ‘Not directly, no.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’ Sedgewick paused and took a piece of bread out of the basket beside him and began to break it into smaller morsels. ‘No interest in bells yourself, I suppose? Good shoulders. We could use a man like you on the full peal. Takes good shoulders to ring the Tenor. Sixty-two hundredweight. B flat, Domine, dirige nos.’

  ‘I’m afraid I was a complete failure at maths. Not much better at Latin.’

  ‘Well, that’s no good then.’ Sedgewick sighed. ‘You really must have maths or at least a very good memory for numbers. Concentration, dedication. I suppose you also have to be a little mad. Takes more than shoulders.’

  ‘So I understand.’ A little mad, he thought, a poor description of the man he was pursuing.

  ‘Unique to England.’ Over Sedgewick’s shoulder Black could see the grinning figure of Brogi, piloting a long-handled broom across the floor and watching them. The Italian had obviously been given any number of lectures about bells and bell-ringing in the past and now he was enjoying the sight of someone else receiving the same education.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Black politely, wishing the man would finish his meal.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Sedgewick nodded, eating a tiny fragment of bread and lifting another forkful of spaghetti. ‘No one else does it.’ He smiled proudly. ‘And no one else does it better than our little group at St Paul’s. The heaviest full peal of twelve in England.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘No need to humour me, Inspector. I’m quite sure that I’m boring you witless.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Of course I am. Everyone tells me I’m a bore.’ Sedgewick finished his wine, lifted his napkin from his lap and patted his lips. ‘Bells are like anything else; utterly without interest except to bell-ringers. Come along, Inspector. I’ll show you the list and then you can be on your way.’

  They went back to the Bells and Sedgewick took Black up a dark, narrow flight of wooden steps that led to the meeting room. The room itself was spare as a monk’s cell, a dozen wooden chairs arranged in a long rectangle, each with a small brass handbell waiting on the seat. The only other piece of furniture was a small desk beside the door.

>   ‘Before the war and the “no bells” regulation, we used to send out little cards to all the members from time to time.’ Sedgewick rooted about in the desk drawer, searching for the list. ‘Advising them of upcoming peals around the country.’ He pulled a single, slightly yellowed sheet of paper from the drawer. ‘Here we are.’ He handed the list to Black. He counted. Thirty-four names and of those half a dozen had inked asterisks beside them and four were struck out completely.

  ‘What do the asterisks mean?’

  ‘Conscripted. The ones with lines through them have passed away.’ Of the twenty-four remaining names only two had addresses in Hampstead.

  ‘This man Stroud. Do you know him?’

  ‘Certainly. Three of twelve. Ten hundredweight, By Faith I Obteigne. The Burdett-Coutts bell. Key of D. A policeman like yourself, Inspector.’

  ‘What sort of policeman?’

  ‘A constable. Talks about his children a great deal.’

  ‘And John Martin?’ The address was on Mount Vernon Street, no more than a quarter of a mile from the house in the Vale of Heath.

  ‘Treble bell. Eight hundredweight. To God Only Belong Honour and Glory. Key of F.’

  ‘Anything memorable about him?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. Quiet sort. Good hands. A lot stronger than you might think at first glance.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘No. Except for the night I found him in the cathedral, long after service.’

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘Do you know the cathedral at all, Inspector?’

  ‘Not very well.’

  ‘The floor beneath the dome is decorated with an enormous compass design. Wren wanted to express the idea that St Paul’s represented the heart of English Christianity. In the exact centre of the compass is a large, brass heat-transfer grate and around that there is Wren’s epitaph: Si monumentum requiris circumspice and all that. The circle with the epitaph is perfectly in line with the centre of the dome, the tower and the ball and cross above; you can actually see the epitaph from the porthole in the ball if you have a mind to climb all those stairs and ladders.’

  ‘Martin was in the middle of the compass?’

  ‘Quite so. Pacing around the epitaph, over and over. I watched him at it for several minutes before I came forward. Very strange.’

  ‘Was he reading the epitaph?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘He was counting.’

  ‘Numbers?’

  ‘Precisely. At first I thought he was practising courses for the peal but that wasn’t it. They were odd combinations, almost equations.’

  ‘How did he react when you interrupted him?’

  ‘It was really quite extraordinary. He smiled and then he started singing.’

  ‘Singing?’ Black stared.

  ‘Umm,’ Sedgewick murmured. ‘It was one of those Army songs from the last war.’

  ‘Do you remember what it was?’

  Sedgewick cleared his throat then frowned as he tried to remember the words. ‘I believe it went something like this:

  “O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling

  O grave, thy victory

  The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling

  For you, but not for me.”’

  * * *

  Guy Liddell stood on the roof of the block of flats beside the Dove at Hammersmith Pier, peering down at the dock through a pair of high-powered binoculars. All he could make out were rough patches of shadow marking the pier and the boats moored to it, all of them now mired drunkenly in the ebb-tide mudflats.

  ‘I can’t see a damn thing with these,’ he said, taking the binoculars away from his eyes. ‘It’s too bloody dark.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Ian Fleming, standing beside him. ‘Capstick is watching from the car. He’ll flash his lights when Tennant appears.’

  ‘Pray he doesn’t run into a wandering ARP warden.’ Liddell glanced up at the night sky and then at the luminescent dial of his wristwatch. ‘The Luftwaffe will be here any minute now.’

  ‘Maybe there won’t be a raid. Perhaps the Germans have run out of bombs.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that if I were you, Fleming. It’s early days yet.’

  ‘Not for Tennant.’ The young naval officer grinned.

  ‘No, not for him.’

  The psychiatrist had severely underrated the abilities of the police. An hour after entering Rooksnest one of the watchers had discovered the name of the boat. By that time Tennant was just reaching Kew but a radio report was quickly sent out and the River Police were alerted. With the tide ebbing it was assumed that Sandpiper would put in somewhere to keep from being trapped in the narrowing midstream so three Flying Squad cars were also sent out to check the landing spots from Puddle Docks below St Paul’s to Putney Bridge.

  By an odd coincidence Richard Capstick, Morris Black’s long-time friend, was one of the Flying Squad detectives assigned to the task and Capstick decided that perhaps Sandpiper might have put in earlier than expected. When nothing turned up within the limits of their search, he went a little farther west and found the boat sinking into the mud on the far side of Hammersmith Bridge. He questioned the wharf-keeper, found out about the van, then radioed Central from his car. Central in turn relayed the message to Liddell and Fleming, already on their way into town from Rooksnest. The two men had rendezvoused with Capstick at the Dove. That had been at five o’clock. It was now almost six.

  ‘Where the hell is he?’ said Liddell.

  ‘He’s sure to come back here,’ said Fleming. ‘I mean, he really doesn’t have anywhere else to go.’

  ‘No word on the Fordson?’

  ‘Nothing yet. They’ve put people at all the railway stations and everyone is looking for the van just in case he tries to slip away by road.’ Fleming ducked down and lit a cigarette behind his cupped hand. ‘It’s not as though they’re running the boat train across the Channel, Liddell; he’ll turn up eventually.’ The young Navy man shivered; the south-east wind was even stronger now, blowing steadily across the river and into their faces. ‘Damned cold,’ he grunted, puffing on his cigarette.

  Liddell put the binoculars to his eyes for a moment, surveying the barren wharf where Capstick was on the watch. After a long silence he said, ‘The policeman who found the boat?’

  ‘Capstick? What about him?’

  ‘Friend of Black’s, isn’t he?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Fleming innocently.

  ‘Oh, do us a bloody favour, won’t you?’ Liddell said dryly. ‘You’re one of the people Morris interviewed, you’re an associate of Maxwell Knight’s and you’re Godfrey’s bloody assistant at Naval Intelligence. Knight brings you along to Tennant’s office and you’ve been sticking to me like glue ever since. Let’s pretend that we’re all grown-up lads and not playing at sixes and sevens, shall we?’

  ‘All right,’ Fleming agreed after a moment. ‘In that case, why don’t you admit you know perfectly well Capstick and Black are friends?’

  ‘I almost expected him to be here or at Tennant’s.’

  ‘Black?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Knight asked me to tell Black about Tennant. I couldn’t reach him. Katherine is half out of her mind with worry.’

  ‘The American woman? The supposed journalist?’

  ‘Yes. He wasn’t there when she woke up and she hasn’t heard from him all day. She’s frantic.’

  ‘She works for Bingham at the embassy, doesn’t she?’

  ‘My, we are well informed, Captain Liddell.’

  ‘Not as well as I’d like,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll have to put a word in Bingham’s ear when this is all over. It just won’t do, that sort of thing. Can’t have a whole swarm of amateurs running about and muddying the waters. I’ve enough to deal with as it is.’ Both men turned at the sound of heavy footsteps behind them. Richard Capstick’s bulky figure was striding towards them across the roof. ‘I thought you were on watch,’ said
Liddell.

  ‘Not to worry. I’ve got a man in the car in case this doctor of yours shows up.’ Capstick paused. ‘It just came over the radio. They’ve found the Fordson.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Liddell.

  ‘Hampstead. Holly Walk next to the Catholic chapel. A patrolman spotted it and rang up Central. They want to know what they should do now.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Liddell. ‘We can’t be in both places at once.’

  ‘I could go,’ Fleming offered.

  ‘One more thing,’ said Capstick. ‘There’s going to be a raid. Word just came in from the coast. Heinkels and 88s, more than a hundred of them coming in from the Channel Islands and Cherbourg.’ The big man lifted his face and tested the air with his large, wide-nostrilled nose. ‘Could be nasty with a breeze like this, ’specially if they use those candlesticks of theirs.’

  The first sirens began to moan, one high-pitched wail joining its nearest neighbour, no one matching another, until the air was filled with the sound of a hundred different, wavering tones spread out across the darkened city like a sinister spider’s web of warning. In the distance, towards the centre of the city, a weak array of searchlight beams flickered into fife, roving vainly across the empty sky.

  ‘Christ!’ Liddell sighed. ‘The perfect bloody ending to a perfect bloody day.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘What next? I wonder.’

  ‘Hell,’ said Fleming, glancing upward. ‘Death from above.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sunday, December 29, 1940

  7:00 p.m., Greenwich Mean Time

  Morris Black stood on the top step at the rear of 31 Mount Vernon Street and waited. Ignoring the distant echo of the sirens, he concentrated on the door in front of him. It was slightly ajar and he could detect a faint light coming from somewhere deep inside the house. Straining, he held his breath and listened. He could just make out a strange, muffled sound, slowly repeated. It was steady, like the regular dull beating of a drum, a monotonous thumping. Grotesquely, he had the sudden image of a hanged man’s hammering heels.